Activism Alert - April 2004

• Tell Congress to Act For the Benefit of Low-income Families
• The Campaign for Better Health - Moving from a Treatment Society to a Wellness Society
• WHO Warns Of 'Intrinsic Contamination Of Infant Formula'
• Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children
• Stop Marketing of Junk Food to Children

Tell Congress to Act For the Benefit of Low-income Families

Almost forty-four million Americans, including nine million children, have no health care insurance. Most legal immigrant children are excluded from federally funded programs. Because of tight state budgets, the number of people covered by programs such as the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has been declining. With no regular source of health care, people postpone care until their condition is critical, and then appear at emergency rooms.

Low-income families here in the U.S. are often forced to choose between health coverage, housing, nutrition and other basic human needs. For many of these families, the hospital emergency room substitutes for regular doctor visits. Lack of health coverage can be a major reason that low-income single parents lose jobs. Because they lack access to preventive care, they or their children become sick and are forced to miss work or school. Health coverage for all is more than an issue of health; it is a matter of ending poverty and hunger in America.

The number of Americans without health care insurance has been rising. There are now almost 44 million total uninsured people in the country, including nine million children. Furthermore, 90 percent of these children have at least one working parent. Children who do not have health insurance are eight times less likely to have a regular source of health care, four times more likely to delay treatment, and five times more likely to use the emergency room as a regular source of care. Most legal immigrant children are excluded from participation in federal health care programs.

A December 2003 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that states are cutting health coverage for 1.2 to 1.6 million people, almost half of whom are children, from the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Medicaid, and other state health care resources. Most of the families that will be affected by such cuts are those who live within 100 percent to 200 percent of the poverty line. There are six states - Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Montana, and Utah - that have frozen enrollment in such programs as SCHIP due to their budget restraints. Other ways that states are dealing with their fiscal problems are by direct eligibility cuts, increased enrollment barriers, and higher monthly premiums. As this trend continues, the number of uninsured in America will continue to rise.

Congress recognized the dangers of widespread cutbacks in state health care spending and included $20 billion of federal fiscal relief for states as a part of the 2003 tax cuts. This funding expires in June 2004.

What can you do?
Read the Institutes of Medicine report Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations.

Write a letter to your members of Congress. Let them know you are concerned with poverty in your community and country and that you are writing about the more than 43 million Americans who have no health insurance. Point out that there are nine million uninsured children in our country. Refer to the IOM's findings and principles for universal coverage by 2010. Ask that your senator or representative work to pass legislation that will expand health coverage, including assistance to cash-strapped states.

Join RESULTS.org in these actions which also affect low income families:
Welfare Reform
to encourage voting for amendments to the TANF Reauthorization bill that will give families the tools they need to move out of poverty.

Ask Representatives to Support IDAs
special matched-savings accounts that enable low-income families to lift themselves out of poverty.

The Campaign for Better Health - Moving from a Treatment Society to a Wellness Society

Be a part of the first national movement to bring balance to a one-sided healthcare policy! There is an incredible need to build a collective, national presence for the integrative health community, and there are many ways that you can get involved with the Campaign for Better Health to advance better healthcare choices for all Americans. If we work together, we can change healthcare in America.

A few facts:
*The majority of Americans integrate complementary and alternative health into their personal, as well as their family's health and wellness routine. Over 158 million Americans, more than 50 percent of the total US population, use some type of complementary and alternative health practice or product and spend over $30 billion out of pocket each year on treatment and prevention that is often not covered by traditional insurance.

*Current public policy and federal funding is out of step with the health and wellness practices of millions of Americans. Less than one percent of the U.S. government's health budget is allocated towards integrative health and wellness approaches that are often more cost-effective.

* The Campaign for Better Health aligns health policy, research and practice with the health and wellness choices of Americans and their families. The Campaign creates a powerful voice for the millions of integrative health and wellness supporters to bring integrative health and wellness solutions to national attention.

The Campaign for Better Health seeks to create healthier solutions by:
Giving a voice to the millions of Americans who urgently want healthier choices now by building a powerful grassroots movement.
Encouraging real lower-cost solutions for better health by promoting innovative and effective wellness models.
Claiming a seat at the public policy table for the millions of Americans who want a say in the development and implementation of policy solutions that empower consumers and improve health.

What Can You Do?
Tell your story.
Have you found healthy lifestyle choices that enhance your health and wellbeing? Have vitamins and supplements or organic food helped your health? Have you alleviated pain, helped prevent disease or discovered other health solutions with the help of an alternative medicine practitioner? Share your experience.

Sign up for Health in Action email alerts.
We can't reverse the healthcare crisis sitting down! Get active!! Health in Action weekly updates give concerned consumers important and up-to-date health news, analysis and opportunities to make a difference.

Become a Campaign Partner.
There is no fee to join, simply help BHC reach others who would be interested in our issues. As a Campaign Partner, you will receive special updates regarding important policies, programs and ways you can easily make a difference. We will also list you or your organization on our website along with any events you would like added to the event calendar. Most importantly, you can help us communicate with and activate your networks and communities.

Become a Contributing Member.
With a membership costing as little as $19 per year, you receive full membership benefits, including over $100 / year in natural health coupons/discounts and our quarterly publication, Healthier. Consider making a larger gift for a larger impact.

Donate to the Campaign.
Want to help support the activities of the Campaign, but don't want to become a member? Simply make a donation!

Become a Founding Partner.
The Campaign is a partnership of leading health advocates and organizations. The Founding Partners are the backbone, committed to providing extensive resources, energy and time. Become a Founding Partner if you or your organization are seriously committed to healing the healthcare system and want to support the Campaign in a more comprehensive way.

WHO Warns Of 'Intrinsic Contamination Of Infant Formula'

The long-awaited United Nations expert meeting on the bacteria Enterobacter Sakazakii in tins of powdered infant formula has concluded that:

"intrinsic contamination of powdered infant formula with E.sakazakii and Salmonella has been a cause of infection and illness in infants including severe disease, and can lead to serious developmental sequelae (health consequences) and death" and that "E Sakazakii is more commonly found in the manufacturing environment, which is a potential source of post-pasteurization contamination."

The meeting (organised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation in Geneva 2-5 February 2004) agreed that caregivers should be regularly alerted to the fact that powdered infant formula is not a sterile product and that guidelines should be developed to advise on how best to limit the risk of infection.

For two years, since the tragic baby death in Belgium in March 2002 (see Update 31), Baby Milk Action has been pressing for this problem to be addressed by Codex (the United Nation's food standards setting body), WHO and national authorities.

The lack of surveillance in most countries probably explains why the reported frequency of the disease appears to be very low. However, the disease is devastating. Once infection has occurred, mortality rates are between 20%-50%, with significant long-term effects in the form of neurological deficiencies, especially among those with severe meningitis and cerebritis.

An Executive summary and Question and Answer paper is on the WHO website here - amended several times in the light of International Baby-Food Action Network and other comments).

How to alert parents and care-givers is not yet addressed. The conclusions will be forwarded to the Codex Committee on Food Hygiene which meets in Washington in March (for Codex papers and dates see www.codexalimentarius.com).

IBFAN is calling for WHO to take a lead with a Resolution at the World Health Assembly in May to bring this emerging health problem to Member States' attention and to make adequate warnings a legal requirement. We would also like to see the Resolution addressing the problem of contamination, soya formulas, commercial sponsorship andhealth claims. In addition we are campaigning on WHO's NGO policy (see below).

What Can You Do?
You can help by writing a letter of support to the Health Department or Minister of Health in your country.

Baby Milk Action has comments on Codex which you can read here: www.babymilkaction.org/policy/policyindex.html - and posted on the FAO site here.

Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children

Join the coalition to Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children www.commercialexploitation.org in asking Congress for an investigation into marketing and advertising practices aimed at children.

Children are bombarded with advertising almost every waking moment. They see 40,000 ads on television alone - and this figure does not include the numerous commercial messages they encounter on the Internet, in schools, and through product placement and tie-ins with toys and media programs.

There is a growing body of evidence that marketing aimed at children is linked to a rise in obesity rates, eating disorders, precocious sexuality, and violence among children. Marketing also promotes materialistic values among children - and in the process undermines family values and parental authority. The American Psychological Association has just called for restrictions on all television advertising aimed at children under the age of eight.

Congress has been holding important hearings on the Super Bowl halftime show. But no investigation into the media can be complete without a similar investigation into the advertising and marketing practices aimed at children. After all, it was the "anything goes" mentality among marketers that helped create the media climate that led to the Super Bowl debacle.

What Can You Do?
Please take a moment to send a letter to your representatives and ask for immediate congressional hearings and a comprehensive investigation by the Federal Trade Commission or the General Accounting Office into advertising and marketing practices aimed at children.

You may send a letter online through Dads and Daughters E-actions page here that will be delivered to Representative Fred S. Upton, Senator John McCain, Your U.S. Representative, and Your U.S. Senator.

Stop Marketing of Junk Food to Children

Commercial Alert has launched a campaign for a worldwide ban on marketing of junk food to children 12 years of age and under. The purpose of the campaign is to help stop the rising global epidemic of childhood obesity. Literally millions of lives are at stake.

Scores of health professionals and organizations have already endorsed the marketing ban in Commercial Alert's statement on marketing of junk food to children (see below). The statement calls on the World Health Organization to incorporate the marketing ban into its global anti-obesity initiative, or to enact the ban through international health regulations. Such regulations are automatically legally binding on countries, unless they affirmatively opt out.

So far, the statement has been endorsed by 135 organizations, 79 health experts and children's advocates, and 22 elected officials from 18 different countries. It was also sent to Dr. Jong-Wook Lee, Director-General of the World Health Organization.

National health ministers from across the planet will decide in May, at the next World Health Assembly meeting, whether to enact the marketing ban. Your help is needed to persuade them to support it.

What Can You Do?
Call your country's health minister today. Ask your health minister to (a) support the adoption of a ban on marketing of junk food to kids 12 years of age and below, as a part of the World Health Organization's Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, which is pending at the upcoming World Health Assembly meeting on 17 to 22 May 2004; and (b) support the enactment of International Health Regulations to prohibit advertising of junk food to children twelve years of age and below at the World Health Assembly meeting. (For United States citizens, call Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson. His phone is: 202-690-7000.)

Endorse the statement on junk food marketing to children. Send your name, title, affiliation, address and country of origin to gary@commercialalert.org.

Forward this message to others who care about children, and ask them to act on it.

If you have any questions about this campaign, how you can help, who your health minister is, or what their phone number is, please send email to info@commercialalert.org.

Commercial Alert's Statement on Junk Food Marketing to Children
Across the planet, obesity in children is reaching epidemic levels. More kids are getting fatter; and not coincidentally, many of these children are the targets of saturation marketing by the junk food industry, which seeks to displace healthful local eating habits with its own high calorie, high-added-fat, high-added-sugar junk food.*

The time has come to reaffirm that raising children is the role and responsibility of parents. It is not the role of the junk food industry or any other industry, and these corporations must stop injecting themselves into the relationship between parents and their own children. They must stop creating strife in the home by prodding kids to whine and throw tantrums for junk food. They must stop draining family budgets, especially in developing countries, by enticing children to demand junk food that their parents cannot afford.

These corporations must stop undermining the efforts of parents to transmit traditional -- and healthful -- eating habits to their children, and they must respect the sanctity of the family dinner table and the cultural heritage that surrounds it.

We, the undersigned, support a global ban on junk food marketing to children twelve years of age and below. This one step is perhaps the single most inexpensive and cost-efficient way to reduce the global burden of obesity, diabetes and their complications among children. It would require virtually no governmental expenditure, and would likely save families billions of dollars each year that could be better spent on such things as education, healthful food and health care.

Perhaps most important, it would reaffirm that raising children is the role of parents, and not of global junk food corporations.

We strongly urge the World Health Organization to incorporate such a ban into its Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, and to encourage its member states to adopt it. Or, if necessary, the World Health Assembly should issue International Health Regulations to prohibit advertising of junk food to children twelve years of age and below.

* For the purposes of this statement, junk food is defined as foods or beverages that are relatively high in saturated or trans fat, added sugars or salt, and relatively low in vitamins, minerals, protein and fiber.

The list of endorsers for the Statement on Junk Food Marketing to Children is available in both html and pdf formats.

For more information about the World Health Organization's Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, see: * WHO's web page on its global strategy
* WHO's report on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases
* Commercial Alert's analysis of the U.S. Government's secret attack on the WHO and its global anti-obesity strategy
* An Alternet article on the WHO global strategy and the Bush Administration's attack on it

For more information about the World Health Assembly's authority to approve legally binding International Health Regulations, see especially Articles 21-22 of the World Health Organization Constitution

Check out Commercial Alert on the web to keep abreast of commerical news and happenings www.commercialalert.org and subscribe to their email list for updates and materials. To subscribe, go hereor send a blank message to subscribe@commercialalert.org. Subscribers receive 1-2 emails per week, at most.

Sources: Dads and Daughters Commercial Alert